This project was entered into the Walking Visionaries Awards at the Walk 21 Vienna Conference where I gave a fuller explanation of the background. I've posted it here FYI. You can view and vote for the project until the 16th June at the Walking 21 Vienna Website.

Project (Brief)

To walk freely throughout a city is a privilege that is not afforded to us all. The reality for many women and girls is that our freedom is restricted by the threat of sexual harassment and violence. We aim to break the silence around this problem and promote discourse by making a “Stamp of Disapproval” at each location of reported violence, making the reality of daily violence visible

Above is a quick animation I made to promote the Stamp of Disapproval project - raising the visibility of Violence Against Women in the context of the Walking Visionary Awards in Vienna.

Length: 1min 30secsAnimation: Rachel AraSoundtrack: Duke Ellington

Animation was inspired by the amazing graphics of Saul Bass from the 1959 film Anatomy of Murder. This was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to address sex and rape in graphic terms.

Project Short Description

To walk freely throughout a city should be a
privilege afforded to us all. The reality for many women and girls is that the
city streets are not safe and we do not have the same freedom of movement as
men. Our presence is restricted by the threat of sexual harassment and other
forms of violence. A violence that has become an insidious part of society,
often ignored or met with a wall of silence.

We
disapprove of the silence. “Stamp of Disapproval” is an initiative that aims to
break the silence by engaging people in a discourse that will galvanise change
and make the streets a safer and more equal place.

We are
marking all the locations where reported violence and sexual offences have
occurred with an orange stop the violence stamp. By directly marking the
streets our stamps make the reality of daily violence visible. The stamps act
as a visual reminder of what happens on our streets and force us all to
acknowledge the problem. These street interventions will act as a social
conscience, invite participation and become part of the solution.

“Women who take their freedom for granted will be raped, women who stay at home will be safe”, A pervasive myth that has continued to impose restrictive behaviours on women since the eighteenth century [7]

Project Long Description

All humans have a right to roam the city equally, without fear or restriction. UN Women were recently quoted as saying that sexual harassment in public spaces was an under-recognized global pandemic: “Sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces are an everyday occurrence for women and girls around the world—in urban and rural areas, in developed and developing countries.” (3). These issues contribute to restricting women's freedom of movement and enjoyment of a city. We aim to break the silence and galvanise change with our Stamp of Disapproval.BACKGROUND“Stamp of Disapproval” began as my response to an initiative by the United Nation’s 16 days of activism for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Orange YOUR Neighbourhood (9)I’ve often wondered why the distressing crime figures of Gender Based Violence (GBV) have not had the attention or action they should demand. In the UK, 2 women a week are killed by their partner. Over a year 85,000 raped and 400,000 sexually assaulted. 1 in 5 women experience sexual violence (1). Worldwide 35% of women experience sexual violence (2). Reading further around this subject I realised how much women’s movements were restricted compared to that of men's because of the threat of violence and harassment. I had subconsciously built this into my routine without questioning it. In Jackson Katz’s book(8), “The Macho Paradox”, he brilliantly illustrates this problem with an exercise he uses on students. He draws a line in the middle of the board, one side male and one side female, and asks the students “What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourself being sexually assaulted?”. At the end of the exercise the men’s side is almost inevitably blank and the women’s side is packed full of comments. Restrictions such as “Don’t go jogging at night”, ”Go out in groups”, ”Avoid forests or wooded areas”, “Vary my route home from work”, ”Carry mace or pepper spray”, ”Watch what I wear” etc... According to Katz, “some women do get angry when they see the radical contrast between the women’s side of the chalk board, which is always full, and the men’s which is almost always blank” while the men are generally shocked and saddened when made aware of the restrictions that women have imposed upon them through threat or fear.“In London, in a poll conducted in 2012 by the Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW) Coalition, 43% of young women said that they had experienced street harassment during the past year alone. • In France, a study conducted in 2013 by the National Institute of Statistics and Economics Studies found that every fourth woman experienced fear when walking on the street, and that 1 in 5 women have suffered from verbal harassment while walking on the street in the past year.” (5)PROJECTAs a visual artist I feel statistics can be easily forgotten and the written word easily ignored. I puzzled over many potential approaches, some very high tech using mobile devices and apps, but eventually settled on the most direct and simple approach that I thought would create a shared experience and have the most impact. I wanted to physically and visually mark each location around the city where there had been an occurrence of GBV. A mark that would be noticed and would hopefully act as a catalyst to break the continuing silence of violence.The first step was to identify the locations of GBV. We’re fully aware that most GBV is not reported, so we can only work with what has been reported. In the UK the police publish data and locations of all reported incidents of “Violence and Sexual Offences” (4). It is simple to go to the website and type in the postcode you want to act in. One can then zoom in to the locations and print out the map. We then had to devise a covert way of making these stamps on the street. We got hold of paper shopping bags and cut a stencil into the bottom. It was then easy to mark the spot by spraying into the bottom of the bag and through the stencil. Over time we realised that some locations had such huge incident rates that we needed a more effective method. (One location had 170 incidents in one year.) We then invented the sole stamp.Our project is open to others to join in. Anyone can use our Stamp of Disapproval kit or create their own way of marking the streets. We’ve had some great responses from other women and artists who have engaged in the project. One ceramicist is making tiles with the stamp and installing them at locations around the city.SummaryThis is by no means a solution to such a pandemic problem we just want to add to the growing number of voices and actions around the world and hope to collectively affect change.

www.police.uk, At this point in time the figures refer to all violence, not specifically GBV, we stand against all violence but we working to get a specific breakdown of these figures. Another dialogue to be had.